The Miserable Annals of the Earth

Monday, January 11, 2016

Home of the brave, land of the fee

So, strange though this seems to me, over the past two years or so, I've been contacted by a few professional artists who have, apparently, found my writing -- specifically, samples of my original comics scripting and plotting and what have you -- somewhere out there on the internet and, apparently, been impressed by it. Enough so that they've contacted me and indicated a willingness to work with me on some sort of project... they would do the art, I would do the writing, we'd both get credit as co-creators, and we would all live happily ever after.

As time has gone on in these collaborative efforts, however, one thing has become glaringly obvious:

I'm an asshole who doesn't play well with others.

Well, we all knew that, though. Another thing that became glaringly obvious -- these guy aren't really looking for a writer. They're looking for a polisher.

Here's the thing about me -- I'm a poor to mediocre artist. I understand things about art, about atmosphere and nuance and body language and, most importantly in the sequential art subgenre of comic books, that odd thing called 'storytelling' -- which is, essentially, a combination of simulating motion and sound in a medium that has neither, while showing the reader what is going on without them having to make some kind of effort to figure it out, at the same time subtly and unobtrusively directing the reader's eye from panel to panel across a sometimes quite chaotic comics page in a way that all the various images make sense and, well, tell a story.

I can't DO it, certainly not to a professional standard, but I know enough about it not to, for example, script an opening page of a comic book that has six panels on it, five of which introduce each member of a superhero team, all of whom have highly visual powers and one of whom is ten feet tall, and the final panel of which takes up the lower half of the page, and which is supposed to show the entire team charging dramatically into action, against a gigantic robot.

On the other hand, I'm a pretty decent writer, and very knowledgeable in the particular sub-category of superhero comics writing. I haven't done it professionally, but I was mentored in college by two famous, prestigious, very well thought of, successful, and award winning pros, and I've written probably hundreds of pages of comics scripts, mostly for my own projects which were never produced because, alas, I cannot draw and do not know any artists who want to draw my stories.

Which brings us back around to these guys who contacted me, wanting to 'work with' me on 'a project'. A project that they would draw, and I would write.

Now, when I say 'write', I mean, essentially, create. Come up with the basic idea, develop it, find its themes and its subtexts, create characters for it, come up with arcs for those characters, come up with story ideas and plots, take it from a rough concept to something finished and polished, break it down into panels, script the word balloons, the thought balloons, the sound effects, and the captions.

Give you an example. The first artist who contacted me, close to two years ago now, had an idea -- he wanted to do a superhero team comprised entirely of clones, in the Marvel Universe. He did not, he told me quite emphatically, want to do an X-book. He did not want X-clones in this book (although he undermined this a bit by insisting we have Madeline Pryor in it, but, whatever.)

I thought this was a magnificent idea. Clones, you see, infest the Marvel Universe like lice. They're a terrible plot device used by wretched hack writers. But, within the universe itself, they're also... interesting. See, a clone is a discarded object, a throwaway person. Clones are generally created by supervillains, for some nefarious purpose... you clone Spider-man because you want to replace the real Spider-man with a duplicate that is under your mental control. In fact, this is generally always the basic plot behind a clone story... someone comes up with a clone of This Big Important Character so they can kill This Big Important Character, replace him with the clone, and then operate the clone like a puppet.

There are other reasons... unbearable grief at the loss of a loved one is a biggie. Or, we're going to transplant our brain into this clone's body... the Red Skull did that, when he cloned Steve Rogers.

Whatever the case, though, clones are never brought into being from a place of love. They are objects, meant to be used in an evil scheme. Chattel. And if they survive the failure of the evil scheme, which often times they do, then... they are lost. The Big Important Character they were created to replace is still alive, and living the life, filling the role that they were designed, intended, and created to take over. They have nowhere to go, nothing to do, no purpose.

So my collaborator's idea was, some outside force, some evil being or organization, starts killing all the clones in the Marvel Universe. Several of the clones, most if not all of which have superpowers, hear about this, and decide to band together for mutual survival. And to sort of hide in plain sight, they all take on new superheroic identities, and enter the public eye as a new superhero team, in hopes that if they establish their heroic cred well enough, eventually they can ask for help from, like, the Fantastic Four, or the Avengers, or someone.

I loved this idea. And I spent around three months bouncing ideas, via email, off my collaborator. I came up with all these wonderful concepts for the team... who could be in it, what kind of new heroic identities they would adopt, how they would interact with each other, who the Clone Killer was... all kinds of cool shit.

Until, eventually, it became apparent that my collaborator, who knew absolutely nothing about what made this concept workable and appealing (and to be fair, cared less) simply wanted to create a team of cloned heroes in the Marvel Universe... so he could have Namorita in it.

Now, Namorita is a clone, but she wasn't created to replace anyone. She has a place in the world, her own unique identity, and a family. She's not a cast off or a reject, she doesn't need to join a team for protection against some Clone Killer... she's the beloved younger cousin of Namor, the Sub-mariner, and through him, friends with some of the most powerful superheroes in the Marvel Universe. She simply and absolutely does not belong in the superteam I was creating... but it didn't matter to my collaborator, any more than it mattered that she was, sadly, dead. (To be fair, it hardly ever matters if a character you want to use is dead, There's Always A Way.)

Anyway, this is just one example where my collaborator, who was going to draw this team book while I wrote this team book, insisted on overriding me in an area that I felt was, you know, mine... because it had to do with, you know, the writing.

So, we went our separate ways.

And, just recently, I've had this happen again. Another pro artist contacted me, evincing interest in 'working with' me 'on a project'. He had a kinda cool idea, I liked it, I started filling it out and expanding it and, frankly, improving it, and that went along for a week or so... and then he dug his heels in and said "no, we're not going to do it your [awesome] way, we're going to do it my [much more boring] way'.

Rob Liefeld once expressed utter disbelief, a complete lack of comprehension, for why his Image Comic TEAM YOUNGBLOOD was generally received with such... lack of enthusiasm. Especially as to why people thought the writing was so terrible.

Liefeld's reasoning was, there was no difference between the product called TEAM YOUNGBLOOD, which he created and drew and had some writer-guy do dialogue and captions for at Image, and the product known as X-FORCE, which he somewhat co-created and drew and then had some writer guy (who had also done a lot of basic conceptualization on the team, and quite a bit of the plotting) do dialogue and captions for at Marvel.

He simply could not, and for all I know, still can not, grasp the difference between the guy who wrote X-FORCE, whose name is Fabian Nicieza and who is one FUCK of a talented, skilled, popular, and successful comics writer and editor, and the guy who 'wrote' TEAM YOUNGBLOOD, whose name is Hank Kanalz and who is some guy Liefeld went to high school with.

Because to Liefeld, the 'writer' doesn't matter. Yeah, the product needs words, even the most graphics crazy comics nerd won't buy a comic that doesn't have dialogue in it. It's sad (for idiot non-writer artists, anyway) but true. But as far as Liefeld is concerned, ANYone who managed to get Bs in a high school composition course can put coherent words in the little bubbles. What matters is the art. The art was the same 'quality' in both TY and X-F, so, why did people rave about one and heap scorn and derision on the other? It is a puzzlement, for sooth.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both artists who contacted me to 'work with' me 'on a project' came out of Image Comics. They seem to have exactly Liefeld's attitude towards the task of actually writing a comic book... it's not hard. It's not like it takes talent or something. Sure, they can't do it themselves... if you could see these guys' emails to me, you'd understand that they are among the vast vast majority of human beings who could not craft an elegant sentence or create a stylish phrase if the only alternative was being bastinadoed at dawn and then defenestrated at noon. They know that they can't write to even minimum professional standards... but, still... the words in the little bubbles just aren't that IMPORTANT. What matters, as far as they're concerned, is the art.

Well, I'm done with this, so I'm putting this out there right now:

If you want me to 'work on a project' with you, here's my fee schedule:

Scripting your completed pages of art: $25 per page. I'll need 72 hours per page. Send me Xeroxes of the artwork and anything you have that tells me what kind of characterizations you want to see and that explains the story and plot to me, assuming the artwork doesn't.

Full script from your plot/rough concept/basic ideas: $50 per page. Same turnaround time. Send me what you got.

Brainstorming - You've got a bright idea, but you feel it needs some work. Some fleshing out. Some development. Some execution. Or it needs a plot. Or characters. Or a setting. Or a theme, or a subtext, or something else you really don't know the word for but you're sure it's important. $100 per email. I write long emails with lots of great ideas in them. Use 'em, don't use 'em, I don't care. Same turn around time.

All fees are payable in advance. My Paypal address is docnebula01 at juno.com. Drop me a line at damadigan at gmail.com (use your sentience to turn those into a real email addresses, please) advising me you've deposited my fees. I'll check it out, and if the money's there, I'll write you back and tell you to send me what you got, and the clock will start ticking on your project.

All fees are also negotiable -- upward.

All work I do for you is work for hire. When the pages get lettered, I expect to be credited. The name I generally write under is 'D.A. Madigan', but I reserve the right to designate a pseudonym if you hired me to do dialogue on something as shitty as, well, anything Image ever published that wasn't written by an actual writer.

If you want me to ghost write something for you, I'm happy to consider it, but my fees will increase significantly.

I type fast, I'm knowledgeable and talented and skilled... and this way, I won't have any illusions that you actually want me to write something and I actually have any say about how this project is going to come out.

Am I really this insane? If you've read anything else on this blog, well, you know the answer to that, but, really, I do not expect anyone to seriously give me any money for any of these services. The people who have contacted me clearly felt I should be honored to have the opportunity to polish their work up for them, to put words in the little bubbles in their service, and both were very offended when I eventually made it clear that if they wanted me to 'work on a project' with them where they would draw and I would write, I expected to actually WRITE.

Now... on the other hand, if you are a competent comics artist and you want to draw any of my various concepts or projects, examples of which can be found here and here and here and here, just for starters... well, then. Pick any of those links, draw me up a few pages and email me scans so I can see what you can do, and we'll probably talk.

I'm perfectly willing to write for an artist on a spec basis, as long as I'm actually WRITING, which means, in creative control of all of the actual writing aspects of the project... I make final decisions on characters, plots, arcs, subtexts, themes, story content, all that good stuff. The artist... DRAWS it.

Any other arrangement is fine... as long as I get paid up front.

To sum up:

Dialogue and text on finished artwork - $25 per page

Full script from conceptual notes - $50 per page.

Brainstorming - $100 per email.

72 hours per page/email turnaround time.

Fees payable in advance, and negotiable -- upwards.

I get credited in the name I designate when the pages get lettered. If you want me to ghost for you, I'll consider it, but my fees will increase significantly.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Doc vs The Robber Barons

B.A. Arthur stood up - possibly from habit acquired in addressing corporation meetings - to do his speaking.

"Possibly,' he said thoughtfully, 'we should have gone to you in the first place. Our motives in doing this, you may or may not know, are, well - they are idealistic."

"Idealistic?"

B.A. Arthur cleared his throat. "The world today is a turbulent, unpredictable, war-ridden place. In no country, no nation on the face of the earth, are property rights unhampered by taxation. I am an American citizen, and when I die, the United States government plans to take over half my fortune in inheritance taxes - which means they will take some seven hundred million dollars, in spite of all my lawyers can do to the contrary. Granting, of course, that taxation has not made me a pauper before then."

B.A. Arthur scowled before he continued.

"Government meddling - you find it everywhere. Take the New York Stock Exchange, for example - what do you find? Government regulations everywhere you turn. The banks? Deposit insurance - eating up the banker's legitimate profit. Utilities? Government competition forcing rates down until return on capital is cut to a measly seven or eight percent."

Doc Savage looked around the table and said "The point is that you fellows - you very wealthy men - don't like the way the world is today. That it?"

"Exactly."

"And you propose?"

"We will create a sanctuary for wealth," B.A. Arthur said grimly. "There will be no income tax, no tax on any business enterprise of any size. There will be no regulations. Operating from such a country, we will soon make it the financial center of the world."

"What about the natives of Cristobal?"

"Oh, them? They will be shown their place." B.A. Arthur suddenly pounded the table. "There will be none of this damned rights-of-labor stuff! No unions. The first time the fools go on strike, we'll have them shot down. That'll teach them!"

Doc Savage remained emotionless, asked "And where do I come in?"

"We need brains. We might hire yours."

"What makes you think I would work for you?"

"You're one of those idiots who spends his time trying to make a better world, aren't you? Well, we're offering you the chance of your lifetime."

Doc shook his head. "This whole set up is rather hideous. It's selfish and ugly. It is simply a case of rich men - even more wealthy than anyone has a right to be - trying to keep their money and get more."

- THE DAGGER IN THE SKY, Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent)originally published in DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE, 1939

This is a bad book. It begins with the title story, which is a tolerably-written novella featuring a lesbian who just needs the love of a good man to bring her around. The rest of the stories are flat-out awful. Some don't even qualify as stories, they're just setups for RPG campaigns. (The author admits this in his endless introductions to each story) The end of the book is a lengthy timeline or essay or something about how he'd merge the Marvel and DC comics universes if given the chance to do so. There's lots of pastiches ripped off from Lovecraft and Howard, and even a mashup of Star Trek and the Cthuhulhu mythos. It's terrible. The whole book is terrible. The book is exactly the kind of thing that makes people hate amateur E-books: it's hacky, immature, overpriced (Six bucks? Come on!) and a waste of time.

As a writer, I've never read anything else by Mr. Madigan, but he seems to be the kind of writer who is entirely too confident in his limited abilities. The book is padded out with endless pointless essays. He obviously things everything connected to his writing is fascinating, since each story has an equally pointless lengthy introduction telling the story of how he came up with the idea, what he was doing at the time, or how it was conceived of as a setup for an RPG. He's so convinced of his own brilliance that he clearly doesn't edit his stories, and he clearly thinks everything that comes from his keyboard is brilliant and deserves publication, even if, as I said, it's just a big timeline of what he'd do with comics, if he owned the two largest comic book company in the world.

Worst of all, as I said, half this book isn't even 'Stories,' it's just random bits and bobs and trash he had laying around. It is the literary equivalent of barber shop floor sweepings. It's useless. As for the author's writing talent, I can't judge. He was attempting to hommage the pulps of the 1920s and '30s, so I don't know if he generally 'sounds' like this or not, and many of the stories simply aren't stories. He may be good, he may be bad. In this particular collection, I'd say his writing is sub-par, but that's probably not a fair assessment.

* * * * *

So I found this review on the Kindle version of my pulp anthology today.

As the witch in HOLY GRAIL has been known to intone, it's a fair cop.

Two things --

First, the paperback version of ZOMBIE RAY is significantly different, these days, from the electronic version. Now, one difference -- it has four more stories in it -- probably wouldn't mean much to L.D. Bronstein, who hates my writing anyway. But another difference -- for the print version, I've modified all the introductions to my stories so as to omit all references to roleplaying game scenarios -- might well have made a difference to how Mr/Ms Bronstein received these stories.

I say this because I have encountered an instinctive, unreasoning and vitriolic hatred for anything having to do with roleplaying games from certain sorts of people many times prior to this. It's very similar, and oftentimes runs parallel to, an equally violent distaste for 'fanfic'. And I have a very strong feeling that Ms/Mr Bronstein might be one of those reflexive haters.

Just a feeling.

My second point is, I'm not sure Mr/Ms Bronstein understands the concept of 'pulp'. He/she seems to be grading the actual writing in the stories on a literary scale. But pulp isn't about being literary, nor is it about what non-pulp fans would doubtless think of as 'good writing'. Pulp is supposed to be visceral, it's supposed to be palpably sensual, it's supposed to be evocative. It's not supposed to make one think, it's supposed to make one feel. It is, primarily, meant to entertain, to provide an escape, to literally take the reader somewhere else for a while.

You can be a great writer and write pulp -- I suppose -- but as a general rule, the best pulp writers -- people like Lovecraft, Woolrich, Hammet, Howard, Dent -- are not very good writers, at least, not from any literary standpoint. These guys created some of the greatest and most entertaining fiction of all time, they sold millions of copies of their stuff (and generally got paid pennies for it, too), they have entertained millions of people over the years, their work has inspired countless adaptations in various forms of media... but no one is ever going to nominate any of these guys for a post humous Pulitzer. Michael Chabon they ain't, and when it comes to 'literary greatness', making millions of people feel good ain't worth shit. In fact, I suspect it actually works against you.

But just as entertaining people and providing them with some relaxation and entertainment has nothing to do with literature, so too is, 'good writing' is not the point of pulp. And I honestly do not understand what someone who buys a book titled THE ZOMBIE RAY FROM OUTER SPACE AND OTHER PULP STORIES expects... THE NAKED AND THE motherfucking DEAD?

As my wife might say, "ain't gonna happen, cap'n".

I love pulp. I love reading it and I love writing it. But anyone who reads a collection of contemporary pulp pastiche stories (and essays, and other things) and who turns around and says "Well, the WRITING is terrible"... I just don't know what to say to that person.

I will say this... Mr/Ms Bronstein seems to have hated the subject matter of the stories, and the type of stories, perhaps as much or more than the writing quaility, and, again, it makes me wonder -- why would someone spend $5.95 for an ebook called THE ZOMBIE RAY FROM OUTER SPACE and then get mad because that book contains things like 'rip offs' of Howard and Lovecraft and 'a mashup of Star Trek and the Cthuhulhu [sic] mythos"..

Aaaaaand one final note... I've just clicked on Ms/Mr Bronstein's link, and discovered that whoever they are, they seem to like the works of fellow Indie Author Kevin Long a great deal.

This may be significant. Several months ago, this guy Kevin Long wrote to me out of nowhere about something... one of my books, maybe, I don't know... and we ended up exchanging free copies of our books with each other. I liked a couple of his short stories (his "Undead At War" series of shorts is very good) and intensely disliked some others (his "Southern White Trash In Space" series is not only profoundly stupid, but near offensive in its self indulgence). And because I don't think anything less than honest criticism is helpful to a writer, I told him this, in some detail.

He wrote back, advising me that.. well, he told me pretty much word for word what Mr/Ms Bronstein has said, above.

I don't know if it was significant that I dissed some of his work before he'd read and responded to mine.

I told him at the time that I felt it was bad form for one indie author to leave a bad review in public for another indie author, and I wasn't going to do it. And in fact, I gave him a good review on his anthology, by essentially only commenting on the "Undead" stories.

He agreed with me wholeheartedly about what a douche move it would be for one indie author to leave a bad review for another indie author's book.

However, I also made it clear to him I didn't want to correspond with him any further, as in my subjective opinion, he was pretty much an asshole, for reasons I won't go into.

(Well, I changed my mind, and went into them at the end of this post. Do I seem to contradict myself? Then I contradict myself I am vast I contain multitudes blah blah blah.)

And he wrote back to me a few times protesting my judgment of him, but eventually, when I didn't respond to him any more, he stopped.

And now, a few months later, here's this negative review that pretty much echoes exactly what he told me about the book, several months ago.

Could be just two similar people reading the book and having a similar response, but... then you throw in the four and five star reviews that 'Bronstein' has written for Kevin Long's books, and... well, anyway... it strikes me that there's a palpable possibility that Mr/Ms Bronstein is a sock puppet account for Kevin Long.

Either way, anyone who likes STARGATE ATLANTIS as much as "Bronstein" does isn't anyone whose opinion of my writing I much care about.

And my Star Trek/Cthulhu mash up? It's called "The Captain and the Queen" and it is one of my best stories ever. In my not very humble opinion, it's one of the best pulp stories ever written. Anyone who doesn't like it is a complete fucking tool.

And... guess what? Kevin Long's response to it was to screech "THIS IS FAN FIC!!!" and berate me for including it at all in the anthology, on the grounds that if he'd known there was fan fic in the book, he'd never even have started reading it.

(This is not the primary reason I decided Kevin Long was an asshole I did not want to have anything to do with. The primary reason I decided that was a story he wrote in which Earth's first interstellar colony votes to adopt the Confederate flag as its own particular national banner. I advised Mr. Long that this reflected poorly on his interstellar colonists. He seemed honestly baffled as to why I would think that, and argued strenuously that the Confederate flag, in this case and context, should be seen as a an entity completely divorced from its historical associations... that, essentially, it was just a pretty piece of cloth and that's why the people of Earth's first interstellar colony liked it. He also pointed out that most of these interstellar colonists were poor white trash from the American South, so the Confederate flag would resonate with them, especially as they considered themselves to now be independent from Earth.

What he did not point out, and did not need to, was that the woman who was the herojne of the story in which this choice was made, the fictional female character who was supposed to design an original flag for this colony and who, through fraud and duplicity, tricked the leader of the colony into hoisting the Stars and Bars instead of the flag he and the other members of the ruling council had chosen... was black.

Therefore, obviously, the choice of the Confederate flag could not possibly be a racist one, or have anything to do with racism, because a BLACK PERSON chose that flag.

Because she thought it looked nice.

I am hoping I do not have to explain why, upon reading this story, I considered the person who wrote it to be a complete asshole. Suffice to say, anyone I have to explain this to, is someone I also do not want to spend any significant amount of time interacting with.)

As another note -- 'L.D. Bronstein' identifies him/herself as a writer in this review, but he/she does not seem to have any works available at Amazon. So, there's that, for whatever that's worth.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Marvel Super-Villain Team Up

It
was, perhaps, early evening in the desert... the recent sunset's
golds and reds yet lingered in a thin, tattered banner along
the western horizon, allowing the pyramids to be silhouetted sharp
and dark against its fading glory. The scentomizers were tuned
perfectly; the smells of arid, faintly spicy sand, fecund poppy
fields, silty Nile water gurgling through canals, the sweat of the
nearby camels, the dry, powdery aroma of the silk pavilion
canopies... all of these mingled with the delicious aroma wafting off
the haunch of goat crackling over a camel fewmet fire.

The
fire crackled convincingly; a dry desert breeze moved through the
oasis like an invisible river, rustling the pavilion silks
authentically.

In
the oasis' central pool, thirty feet from the crackling fire, two men
soaked. Fresh from the rejuvenation baths, neither looked more
than perhaps forty Earth years of age, one of them, in fact, could
have been half that.

Both
had the deeply bronzed skins of long time desert dwellers, although
it was for each an affectation; neither had felt actual sunlight on
their skins for longer than he could easily calculate. Both
were hawk nosed, clear eyed, dark haired, heavy browed; to an
ignorant observer, they would convey the appearance of father and
son, for one seemed to be at least two decades older than the other.
Appearances deceived, as they so often do... the two men
were not father and son. They were much, much closer... and
each was much, much more ancient than he seemed.

"So,
then, Pharaoh," the older man boomed, slapping the cool oasis
water with his palm just to hear the pleasant plashing noise it made.
"Is it not as I have said? Are not the diversions of
Limbo infinite and inexhaustible?"

The
one addressed as Pharaoh did not answer... at first. He was a
thoughtful man. Quick-witted when necessary, but now, no
emergency urged instant response. He pondered his elder's
words, and when his reply was fully formulated, only then did he
voice it:

"Indeed,"
he agreed. "And yet... and yet..."

There
was a wistful sadness to his tone that was not lost on the older man.
"You dwell on the past too much," the Pharaoh's
elder observed. "Here in Limbo, there is no past, no
future... just an eternal now. And now is enough... is it not?"

"You
have been the best of mentors, o Immortus," the Pharaoh Rama Tut
replied, choosing each syllable with care. "And Limbo...
Limbo does, indeed, offer an eternity of delights. Yet... as I
discovered in my own court, in the 40th Century... a life without
strife is a life without meaning."

"Feh,"
Immortus snapped. "I need no telepathy to discern your
thoughts, my friend... and although there is no time here, the
circadian rhythms of your own flesh tell you that now is the time of
year when your beloved Ravonna was first cut down by that cur Baltag.
Do you think I do not feel it myself? Do you think I have
forgotten?" His hand tightened into a fist. "I
will never forget, my friend. Never."

Then
he spread his fingers again, and waved airily. "But life
goes on, Rama... for us. Ravonna remains in her eternal sleep,
Baltag remains dead, Lords of Time rip his spirit to shreds
forever... yet for us, life goes on."

Immortus
turned and gestured imperiously. His strange servant -- 'my
only subject, here in Limbo', as he often labeled the creature --
appeared a few feet away from him, seeming to condense out of the
very darkling air, standing on the damp sand, rubbing his
spider-fingered hands together. "Yessss, my master?"
the creature hissed.

The
servitor vanished, as quickly as he had come. "Does that
creature have a name?" the Pharaoh asked, making no attempt to
mask the irritation in his tone.

Immortus
chuckled. "He is the only subject of Limbo," the
immortal time traveler said. "Why would he need a name?"
He paused. "Although as to that, he is really no
more a 'he' than the silicone in that sand... I built him to be the
ultimate shapeshifter, you know. A perfect agent."

"So
you have said," Rama Tut responded, distaste still evident in
his tone. "But there is something..."

There
was a jangling... silvery, musical. And then, from one of the
pavilions, the six greatest beauties of mythical Earth's storied
history came across the sand, clad in silks and bells and perfumes.
The Pharaoh's protest died in his throat. Ravonna had been
beautiful, in her own provincial way. But these women...!

"Do
you like them?" Immortus chuckled. "There is
Cleopatra, of your own land, but a few thousand years past your time.
Her beauty... and her skills in the pillow arts... are still
legendary millenia after her death." A dusky skinned,
broad nosed beauty, full of hip and bust, nodded in response to
Immortus' words.

"And
here is Princess Ranadys of the land of Esteros, which sank beneath
the vast world ocean aeons before Atlantis ever arose. She was
the last dragon queen..." Here a silver haired girl,
slender as a willow, with purple eyes that flashed an inner fire,
smiled coquettishly at him.

Doubtless
Immortus introduced all six of the women, and all of them were,
indeed, legendary beauties. But the Pharaoh only had eyes for
one... just one... a strong looking female, whose figure was somehow
voluptuous yet athletic at the same time, with clean, clear,
beautiful features and hair the color of spun gold. Eyes as
blue as weapon-steel stared back at his unblushingly, showing a will
as strong and as inexorable as gravity... even if that will was now
bent and somewhat blunted beneath the hypnotic influence of Immortus'
mind control beams.

"And
this is Carol Danvers, of the late 20th Century," Immortus said.
"She has been recently exposed to a Kree device known as a
Psyche Magnitron which has had an interesting effect on her, both
psychically and physically. Her DNA is now an intriguing
mingling of Terran and Kree, and she has just embarked on a career
with the Avengers..."

Immortus
noted the clear signs of infatuation on the face of the Pharaoh...
the dilated pupils, the flared nostrils, the deepening breath tones.
It was aggravating. He had hoped to provide his guest
and student with a distraction from futile, choleric thoughts
regarding Ravonna... but once he had seen the six women chosen by his
servitor, he had also thought to keep this one to his exclusive use.
Something about her aura... so ferocious. Of course, he
knew she had a significant destiny, one that stood out even among the
larger than life fates and dooms of the Earthling superhuman class he
had made an obsessive study of his whole life... yet, still. There
was something magnetic about the woman, here, in person...

"We
will share her," Immortus snapped. "Come, Pharaoh."

The
two men waded up out of the pool side by side, and as one, put a hand
out to clasp either arm of the woman named Carol Danvers --

*
* * * *

The
man awoke, some time later, head aching. "Where..."

He
was lying in a cool pool of water, beneath a spreading... what was
that thing?... a date palm tree, that was it.

Around
him was a... watering hole? No. The word was oasis.
There were silk canopies, rippling in a low, cool breeze.
The braying of a just wakened donkey, or... camel? And...

There,
lying face down on the sand... a woman. A woman with golden
blonde hair... and smoke, rising from her forearms. Almost as
if her arms were energy weapons, and had fired some kind of
discharge...

The
man splashed to her side without further thought. He did not
know who she was, but a great passion for her stirred within him...
so great that it had not yet occurred to him that he also did not
know who he, himself, was...

*
* * * * *

The
man awoke, some time later, head aching. Face down, in
something soft and scratchy, that rustled in the breeze...

He
knew that smell, that texture. Kentucky blue grass...! He
sat up, abruptly.

He
was in a field... or so it seemed. Several large, powerful
looking, oddly beautiful creatures stood on four legs each, cropping
the thick grass, ten or twelve arms lengths away from him.

But
it wasn't true. Somehow he knew, this field full of... hoses?
No, horses...
was an illusion. There was something about it... the feel of
the air wasn't quite right. The scentomizers were slightly off,
and not masking the metallic air conditioning smell fully....

The
scene shimmered, and vanished. The man was sitting on the floor
in a small, gloomy, roughly rectangular chamber, made of what seemed
to be a dull grey metal. The smell of the air conditioning was
more pronounced, now.

From
the empty air, a cool, pleasant voice spoke to him: "This
res-quart is designated as uninhabited. Who are you and how did
you come to access it?"

The
man thought for a moment. "I... I do not know," he
confessed, finally.

"Working,"
the pleasant voice responded. "Analysis of microscopic
cellular particles taken from your respiration indicate..."
There was a pause. "You have DNA strands aligned to
several prominent sociopolitical lines," it continued,
eventually. "But identification cannot be made
conclusively. You are... unknown."

The
last two syllables were spoken evenly, without inflection... but the
man would have sworn the voice was, nonetheless, appalled to have to
confess to such a thing.

"Identity
is necessary," the voice continued. "I shall assign
you a random nomenclature and begin building identity files for you.
Basic remedial training in civil necessities will be made
available to you. This cubicle will be assigned to your
needs."

The
man got to his feet. "You are a computer," he said.

"I
am a pseudosentience," the voice corrected him, somewhat primly.
"My specific role is social optimization. Do not
worry. A place will be found for you."

It
paused once more, and then continued. "Your DNA has some
strands taken from the prominent Richards family. I shall,
therefore, assign you the name Nathaniel Richards..."

*
* * * *

The
woman did not remember her name, any more than he did his. But
when she had first looked up at him with those laser bright blue eyes
and asked him who he was, a fragment of conversation had come back to
him. He had been speaking with an older man, who looked
somewhat like him... his father?... that seemed wrong, somehow, but
still, in his photographic recall of this fragmentary, isolated
scene, the resemblance was unmistakable.

The
man had been laughing, and saying "...no heir... none that
lived, anyway. But should I ever have a worthy son, I will name
him Marcus..."

"Marcus,"
he had told her. "My name is Marcus." It felt
right, on some level, and wrong, on another... but he also had a deep
conviction that he had lived a long, rich life, and over the course
of it, he had had many names. Marcus was as good as any...

"You
are Carol," he told her, knowing as he said it that it was
correct.

"Carol,"
she said, tasting the name. "And... we are alone here,
Marcus...?"

Marcus
looked around. "Yes," he said. "I... "
He looked back at her, boldly. "From how I feel when
I look at you, Carol, I think... I think we are honeymooning."

She
met his gaze with hers... and then, when he bent his head forward,
she met his mouth with hers, as well...

*
* * * * *

The
newly minted Nathaniel Richards did well at his studies, and showed
an aptitude with the subatomic particle circuitry that 30th Century
technology was entirely built around. But he was restive.
The place and time he had come to was very civilized... almost
decadent. Any citizen could have anything he or she wanted,
merely by asking a socio-mech to simulate the sensation.
Somewhere in his mind, Nathaniel was reminded of a bit of
ancient folk wisdom... "Instant gratification takes too long..."

There
was no challenge here, nothing to strive for!

Yet
Nathaniel had a goal, one that burned within him. A set of
blazing blue eyes, looking into his.. his? Or some other man's?
He could not quite remember. Skin as soft as
velvet under his touch, stretched taut over muscles like corded
titanium... and a psychic aura that blazed like a supernova.
He could not recall her face, her form, any other details of her
appearance... but he would move mountains to find her. She was
his, and he was hers... even though he had a feeling that he had at
least one rival for her affection. It would not matter. He
knew, in his heart, that he was a conqueror, and he would always be
supreme...

He
knew where to look for her. A half remembered snatch of
conversation... "the late 20th Century... just embarked on a
career with the Avengers..."

He'd
done global searches using those phrases. Something had
happened in that era... something important. The Celestial
Madonna, so called, had given birth to... someone... a child that had
risen to unite the entire galaxy, at least, for a time, under one
benevolent banner. A Golden Age, a time of unparalleled
prosperity, which had lasted a thousand years... which was still
going on, even today, here in the exasperatingly peaceful year of
3012.

Was
the woman he sought this Madonna? Somehow, he was sure she must
be. She must be. His true love... somehow he knew, she
would not be sitting around waiting for him to claim her. He
would have to fight others for her... he would have to conquer! But
in the end, she would be his.

Time
travel was known to be possible... supposedly, the technology had
originated in that very era. He could go there, and find her.

He
would. He would conquer the entire universe, all of time
itself, if that was what it took to win her to his side...!

*
* * * * *

"She
could not have had the child here in Limbo," the servitor said,
his tones (as always) an unsettling mixture of sneer and sycophancy.
"There is no duration here. It would not have
prospered..."

"I
know that," the man who no longer called himself Marcus snapped.
"But it might have done well on Earth, in Carol's native
time frame, if I had not seized on its form as a vehicle for my own
escape from this hellish place..."

"Well,"
the servitor responded, "you could have just opened a portal.
You know how to use the machines."

"Opening
a portal into the late 20th Century is always difficult," the
man snapped. "Temporal turbulence makes such a transit
hazardous at best. I thought the other gambit might work
better. If those idiot heroes hadn't destroyed my machine, I
could have corrected that body's asynchronous genetic coordinates,
and..."

"Coulda,
shoulda, woulda," the servitor said. "I do feel deep
admiration for the novel way in which you dumped her, though, after
she followed you back here. That illusion of you aging to
decrepitude and dying within a few moments... that was masterfully
done. She'll be some time getting over the psychological scars
of that little break up ploy... it may well drive her to drink."

"Ah,
infatuation," the servitor thought, waggling his disturbingly
unkempt eyebrows provocatively. "You know that Immortus
was infatuated with her as well, do you not? And wherever he
may have ended up, he will seek her out, as well?"

"I
am Immortus now," the man said, regarding the regalia laid out
upon the sleeping platform in his chamber. "Although,"
he added, dubiously, "I'm not sure I want to dress like him..."

The
new Lord of Limbo scowled at the servitor. "Am I going to
have problems with you, creature? My predecessor may have
tolerated your insolence, but I am not he." The former
Pharaoh stopped at that, thoughtfully. "I mean... well..."

The
servitor bobbed and capered obsequiously. "I will give you no
problems, Master," it declared. "I have ever served the
Lord of Limbo, and ever shall. In that service, I shall tell you
that my artificially attuned chronal senses advise me that the
temporal turbulence you already know of in the late 20th and early
21st Centuries on Earth has increased by nearly an order of magnitude
since your paramour's return to her native time-point. I cannot be
sure, but I believe your predecessor in those robes is somehow
causing this disruption."

"He's
going after her," the former Pharaoh said, through gritted
teeth. "He's still besotted... he must not have her!"

The
servant raised his fantastical eyebrows in exaggerated puzzlement.
"But... master... if you do not want her..."

"He
will not have her," the new Immortus growled. "He
will not lay a hand on her. Hmmm... I must come up with a scheme..."
He turned, and pointed at the servitor. "You will travel to her
timeframe. You will shadow her. You will protect her. You will be my
perfect agent in this. You will keep my other self from ever so much
as setting his damned dirty paws on her."

The
servant shrugged. "Your wish, my command, of course, my master,"
he replied. "May I suggest... perhaps I could replace that
obnoxious Anthony Stark in the Avengers roster? Then I could keep a
close watch on her. The two of them become quite companionable, I
believe..."

"YOU
are not to lay a hand on her," the Master of Time snarled.

"Oh
no, master, of course not, I am not worthy," the servitor
whined. "I will simply look out for her... and ward her.
Perhaps... if your predecessor's attention could be turned to
another... perhaps some sort of scenario could be woven, to convince
him to ignore Ms. Danvers, and fixate on someone else..."

"Yes,"
the Lord of Limbo agreed, musing. "That whole Celestial Madonna
thing will be going on right around that time period, and I remember
how obsessed I was with the Madonna... I can't recall why, now... I
mean, what was I going to do with Mantis, even if I'd managed to
obtain her? A skilled courtesan, I have no doubt, but...
Gleaming Galaxies! The woman married an undead corpus reanimated by a
sentient tree!" Immortus... the newest of his name...
shuddered. "By the Lords of Time, I really dodged a particle
beam there."

"I
will depart immediately, Master," the servitor responded. "May
I suggest that I enter the timestream some light years away from
Earth, to avoid the local turbulence? I can easily travel there at
faster than light speeds once I am within the timeframe. I
will establish my presence early on, at the very founding of the
team, or shortly thereafter. It will give me an excellent
vantage point to watch over Ms. Danvers, as the Heroic Age unfolds."

"Capital,"
Immortus responded. "Do it. At once."

"Yes,
Master," the servitor said, rubbing his inhumanly long fingers
together in satisfaction...

*
* * * *

As
the servitor sped through the vacuum of space towards Earth, it
considered what it had already done, and what yet remained for it to
do. It went through each aspect of its plan meticulously,
testing each step in its own mind, re-examining each link.

The
female had been key -- this 'Carol Danvers'. When Immortus-A
had commanded it to go and seek out 'the six most beautiful
human women of all time', to distract Immortus-B from his melancholy
over yet another human female, the servitor had taken the opportunity
to initiate its own schemes. The scheme would spread from that
point, a veritable labyrinth worming its incomprehensibly complex
threads and branches through every level of space-time... but it was
with that command, given outside time by the man always had been and
always would be the greatest living master of time itself... that
command was the very first stone that had been dropped into the
pond, causing the very first ripple.

For,
what was beauty? How could the servitor know? It was not
human. It had no permanent gender. It could take on any
seeming, certainly... but to it, all living beings were potential
partners in its eternal dance between the chronons. All living
beings were beautiful, in their own way. But one, and only one,
would be useful in fulfilling the servitor's desires.

So
it had taken her, Carol Danvers, from a point in the late 20th
Century, and brought her to Limbo, supposedly for the pleasure of its
master(s). But actually, the servitor was the only living being
in the universe who knew how carefully Carol Danvers had been
sculpted over the course of her life... shaped and molded, to be the
servitor's perfect tool.

How
it had slaved over her! Replacing both her father and mother at
different times, to ensure she was even conceived, at just the right
moment. Replacing various of those odious, oh so pompous Kree -- Mar
Vell far from least in those measurements! -- to ensure that the
young human female would not only be exposed to the nearly
immeasurable powers of the Psyche Magnitron, but that when she was,
the wish it would fulfill, hidden deep within the subconscious
recesses of her mind, would be that she would become a woman worthy
of Mar-vell himself... a woman warrior who was at least his equal, if
not his superior. And so she had. And so she was.

A
woman worthy, perhaps, to one day give birth to... The One!

From
there, the guidance had gone on. Replacing that awful plant smoking
human with the strangely flat head long enough to offer Danvers the
job that would move her to New York City... a necessary step, to
place her within the ranks of the Avengers, at just the correct
moment, so that she would take sanctuary at Avengers Mansion when she
returned from Limbo, all amnesiac and unknowing as to where the
strange pregnancy within her had originated.

For
had she not taken shelter with the Avengers, Immortus might well have
escaped Limbo into a permanent human form on Earth... a human form
immune to the servitor's powers.

And
that must never be.

For
that was the one immutable, unalterable command Immortus had woven
through every fiber of the servitor's artificial being during
creation... that the servitor could never, under any circumstances,
use his powers on Immortus. Or any temporal iteration of Immortus.
And that the servitor must always obey Immortus... any iteration of
Immortus, although the others would not know that... even at the
expense of the servitor's own desires.

Had
Immortus, in the form of Marcus, managed to free himself and take
corporeal form on 20th Century Earth... already with strong alliances
forged to the Avengers... he would have been in position to shake the
very stars in their heavens. And the servitor could not have
displaced him, either. He might well have become... The One!...
fathering himself on himself, proving Carol Danvers to be the
Celestial Madonna indeed.

And
the servitor could not allow that. Because at the end of this
scheme, somehow, someway, the One would be born. And as long as the
One was not an iteration of Immortus, then it would be a valid target
for the servitor's powers.

The
One would assume its destiny, dominating the entire Galaxy, bringing
all of humanity under its loving, beneficent tyranny, creating an
interstellar utopia unprecedented in history.

And
then, the servitor would displace the One, and rule in its place...!

But
much remained to be done before then.

The
first steps were already taken. The servitor had subtly bent
Immortus' mind control beams not just upon the captured women, but
upon both iterations of Immortus, as well. The men had been naked,
relaxed, secure in their timeless sanctuary, certain that they could
not in any way be attacked... and indeed, all the servitor had done
was ensure that they would both become sexually fixated upon, even
obsessed with, Carol Danvers. Because, when their temporally
charged flesh touched Danvers' own substance, empowered so recently
by the Psyche Magnitron, there would be an energy discharge, and the
servitor could use that energy discharge to its own ends.

An
undetectable portal would be opened, to tumble the more entropically
advanced Immortus through, after a short range, high powered
hypnobeam had permanently addled his long range memories. He would
arrive millenia earlier in his own lifeline, and begin his eternal
cycle once again... his obsession with a mythical 'Celestial
Madonna', from somewhere in the 20th Century, already well rooted in
his mind.

...while
his younger counterpart, similarly stunned, would remain behind, to
become Immortus, thus continuing the eternal cycle... most
importantly, eventually, to create the servitor itself.

So
it was started... but there were decades of work ahead of it yet.
Centuries, perhaps. But what did that matter, to a being such as
itself?

It
would self program itself to believe it was a 'Space Phantom'... a
vanguard for a nonexistent race planning to invade Earth, come to
test the planet's mightiest heroes in battle. Should it somehow fail
in combat and be captured, that bit of self hypnosis would keep the
Earthly heroes from learning anything of the truth... and, more
important, keep its creator's various avatars from learning anything
of it, as well.

In
time, the programmed false knowledge would fade away, letting the
servitor recall its true mission... and its true intentions.

The
Avengers would defeat it, of course... the memory was clear in the
servitor's semiorganic data processors; non-linear, six dimensional
recall was an attribute nearly unique to it. That damned
pseudosentience inside the Norse Eternal's primitive bashing
weapon... how dare
it pass judgment on the servitor's worthiness to gain the Norse
Eternal's powers! It still galled the servitor to recall it. But
once it engaged its self programming, it would know nothing of it at
the level of surface consciousness. The non linear recollections
would be buried beneath its autohypnotic programming.

But
after the initial defeat, when the servitor was returned to Limbo, it
would make use of the master's technology to transport itself back to
Earth along with many of the master's machines. It would establish
itself in an unused subterranean warren it was aware of. Then it
would act as if it were 'seeking vengeance' on the odious Avengers
for its earlier defeat... a most illogical and nearly inexplicable
course of action, given the givens, but the servitor knew enough of
the behavior of a typical human 'super villain' to know that no
Earthling of that time and place would think twice about such a
motivation.

It
would, briefly, establish dominance over a small sub faction of the
laughable Hydra. It would carefully calibrate all of the technology
at its disposal by running field tests against at least one of these
so called superheroes – perhaps the one called Captain America, he
seemed the most resourceful of the available test subjects. It would
establish a doomed alliance with the farcical Grim Reaper, to further
calibrate its machinery against a larger squadron of heroes... and
all the time that it did this, it would be establishing its primary
identity as 'The Space Phantom', an earthly supervillain of not
insignificant power and repute.

It
would, once more, allow the Avengers to believe they had defeated it
through a trick any just spawned ameoboid would see through.

And
then... then it would return to Earth once again, and begin its real
work. Protect Carol Danvers from his master's other avatars?
Certainly. It could replace any being it chose to, and in their
place, it could work its own will without fear of detection.
Replacing that oh so earnest and solemn Watcher just long enough to
place the artificial star in the sky above the domicile of the
Avengers... yes. That would focus Immortus' younger, more savage
avatar on the three women within the edifice at that time. I

In
the meantime, it would be well positioned. It would have established
an identity that would allow it to interact with the superhuman
community at will, and, of course, it could assume any other identity
it needed to.

There
would be setbacks, it was aware. At some point, some other agent –
it was, itself, unaware of just who – would either impersonate the
mutated human known as Rogue, or mind control her, into making a
devastating attack on the Danvers female. And then there was
Nightmare's agent Aarkus, slumbering within the body of the android
Avenger, forever striving to sire competing candidates to be 'The
One'.

None
of it would matter. It was adaptible. It was flexible. No other
being in the universe could do what it could. If its ongoing
campaign seemed to go off course, the servitor could replace any
other being it needed to and affect a course correction.

Thursday, May 01, 2014

It's all about power

It's all about power, you see.

To a certain sort of very unpleasant person, anyway.

Power comes from many things; perhaps the greatest triumph of civilization, of law and order, has been to remove power from the hands of the merely strong and numerous, and place it into the hands of the wealthy and influential. In an uncivilized world, power belongs to those who can physically dominate others; under the rule of law, it belongs to those who can hire and control the means of establishing such dominance.

Once upon a time in America, and other Western lands, only certain sorts of people could become wealthy, and therefore, only certain sorts of people could weild power.

Women could not become wealthy, and therefore, could not become powerful. Homosexual men could not become wealthy. And non-whites could not, nor could those who did not publicly profess the established, acceptable religion, Christianity (usually a specific subsect of it).

If you were not a white Christian heterosexual male, well, you might, if fortunate, be in a position to pretend to be one, if you were hypocritical enough to hide your own true beliefs, cunning enough to disguise your own physical or emotional nature, lucky enough to be able to pass.

If not, well, then you could not amass wealth, and you could not become powerful.

Over the course of the 19th and 20th Centuries, people learned how to organize themselves, how to take concerted action, and this gave the previously powerless previously unheard of power (and some wealth). This is why we got the New Deal, because anarchists (ironically) organized themselves and conducted a campaign of domestic terror until the New Deal was passed. The poor working class unionized. When the unfettered capitalist remnants of the Guilded Age were presented with the apparition of an America undergoing its very own October Revolution, they allowed their Congress to pass some sweeping reforms. Their choice was to watch the countryside go up in flames, and possibly end up marched to whatever the American equivalent of the guillotine might have been.

Since then, progress has marched on. Women and non-whites have gained the vote and through that vote, some wealth and some power. Non-Christians have organized their own votes and have managed to gain some wealth, and with those actions, some power. Even homosexuals have organized themselves, and gained enough wealth, to become a power that others can no longer offend with impunity.

And this is the basis of it. This is the foundation of every single bit of right wing rage, of conservative anger, of reactionary umbrage, of this deep, heartfelt yearning that the far right feels for a simpler, happier time when a wealthy heterosexual Christian American white man could do whatever the hell he felt like doing without worrying about other people's responses. He could slap his secretary on the ass, drop cigar ashes on his colored shoe shine boy, and curl his lip derisively at homos, and there wasn't a damn thing any of them could do about it... if they dared to even speak a syllable of protest, he could have them fired, arrested, jailed, committed... even beaten or lynched.

Because he had all the power, and they had none.

That's changed now. The power is more evenly distributed, and if a conservative, who genuinely believes that his gender, his religion, his ethnicity, his sexual orientation, his nationality, are naturally exceptional and superior to all others, behaves in a way consistent with those beliefs, well, chances are, that behavior will offend someone who does not agree with his presumption of exceptionality and superiority.

That's nothing new. The behavior of those who presume themselves exceptional and superior has always offended... well, pretty much anyone who wasn't an asshat, actually.

The difference is, in the good old days, the people who weren't entitled, stuck up asshats couldn't do anything about it. Sure, they were offended by how the wealthy asshats treated them.. but they didn't dare do anything about it. It was worth their jobs, their livelihoods, their good health, or even their lives, to protest.

Not any more.

Now, if someone offends someone else, you can bet that someone else is going to say something about it. There may even be unpleasant repercussions for the person giving offense.

Conservatives cannot stand this. They will not tolerate or abide it. It is an abridgement of their basic civil rights, their freedom, as affluent and influential asshats, to say and do anything they want without any kind of blowback whatsoever.

Everyone has a right to say stupid and offensive bullshit. But no one has a right to do it with impunity.

But oh, the right wing thinks it does, just because once upon a time, it could.